Health News at Your Fingertips

From AAP:

New Zealand will dismantle the hard border around Auckland in time for Christmas, allowing separated Kiwis to reunite over the holidays.

However, police will fine any unvaccinated citizens who attempt to leave the country’s biggest city, undertaking random spot checks similar to drink-driving patrols to keep COVID-19 at bay.

New Zealand is enduring its worst outbreak of the pandemic, with daily case numbers around 200, the majority of them in Auckland.

On Wednesday, health officials announced one fatality connected to the virus – of an Auckland man in his 60s – bringing the country’s death toll to 35.

McCormack has attacked Labor and the Greens for wanting to legislate net zero.

“The Labor and Greens’ way, that’s to legislate these targets. They’re going to close the resource sector and many of the mines down. They don’t care about the Hunter.

“They don’t care about the farmers in Forbes or elsewhere. We are there and we’ll protect not only industry and protect families, protect small business, but we’re also going to lower emissions.

“That’s the responsible thing you’d expect a Coalition government and the Nationals in government to do.”

Patricia Karvelas is asking Michael McCormack about Barnaby Joyce saying the Nationals didn’t sign the Cop26 climate pact.

McCormack says: “The Nationals agreed to net zero. The Nationals agreed to put that in place, along with our Liberal colleagues in a Coalition government. We’re governing Australia for the future.

“We’re in full agreement with the government and the government’s position is the government’s position we took to Glasgow. The farmers that we represent, for the resource industry which we proudly represent, is going to continue to be there.

“May Coalition governments long continue into the future because that’s one way we will ensure we have the economic power base in the ag sector, the resource sector and not charging people through the nose through their power point.”

Nationals MP Michael McCormack is talking on Afternoon Briefing now. He is in Forbes and helping with the evacuation and flood response.

“We heard 47 dwellings have been evacuated. That’s 122 people,” he said.

“There have been a number of people who have said that we’re going to stand here and stand our ground.

“I spoke to Brian Miller who lives around here and he’s not concerned even though the water is creeping up into his backyard. He says it’s not as high as the 2016 flood which reached 10.56m. It’s about 12 centimetres below that at the moment.”

And while we are on vaccines – some really, truly, very great news here.

And we have more data on Victoria’s Covid numbers from today. AAP has a big breakdown of all the numbers you need to know:

• Active COVID-19 cases: 14,260, down from 17,518 on Monday
• Deaths reported on Wednesday: Nine people aged from their 50s to 90s
• Death toll across the pandemic: 1248
• COVID-related patients in hospital: 357, a decrease of 37
• Seven-day hospitalisation average: 402, a decrease of 16
• Actively infected patients in ICU: 58
• Cleared patients in ICU: 65
• ICU patients on a ventilator: 35
• Tests administered on Tuesday: 72,010
• Vaccine doses administered at state-run hubs: 6692

This is a really lovely good news story from science reporter Donna Lu.

A recent sighting of the Kangaroo Island assassin spider has given researchers new hope for the survival of the species, which was feared extinct after the 2019-2020 bushfires.

According to Donna, it looks like a pelican and uses its elongated jaw to impale prey.

Better than a Bunnings sausage?

Sporting greats from rugby league, soccer, netball, Australian football and rugby union will be on hand to congratulate those being vaccinated at select schools during pop-up clinics across Queensland this weekend.

Health minister Yvette D’Ath says it’s a great opportunity to “get a jab and an autograph”, a sentence I never thought I’d read.

I’m no meteorologist, but I’m confident this is quite a downpour.

The three highest totals recorded in Victoria for the week were all in Gippsland.

Over in Canberra, private developers can’t provide affordable housing for low-income earners despite bringing 99% of new properties onto the market, AAP’s Alex Mitchell and Dominic Giannini report.

Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute director Steven Rowley told a House of Representatives committee examining housing affordability the figure was up from around 80% in the mid-1950s.

He added the country faced a “major challenge” with median income earners unable to afford a median priced home.

The hearing also heard saving for a home deposit now takes 10 years on average, a sharp increase from 2001 when it took around 5.5 years.

CoreLogic researcher Eliza Owen noted it took around 12 years to save for a deposit on a home in Sydney.

She said conversation surrounding house prices only reached government and media when more wealthy people were affected, adding the long-term decline in ownership rates were mostly in low-income cohorts:

That would suggest that you have widening wealth inequality perpetuated through Australia’s housing system.

The Grattan Institute’s Brendan Coates agreed wealth inequality was continuing to grow and said that would have “very profound consequences” on society’s structure, particularly in retirement:

If you own your own home in retirement you’re a very good chance of living a very comfortable retirement. If you are a renter, then given the current structure of our income support system, you are potentially in quite a lot of trouble.

The committee was told just 2.5% of established properties were on the market at any time, down from 4.5% cent in 2008.